It’s not only the treatment of ducks and geese that are a cause for
concern in farming.

'Need to make it completely clear story about my buying foie gras total fabrication i.e. a lie,” tweeted Nigella Lawson yesterday. Such was the Domestic Goddess’s indignant reaction to press reports that she bought under-the-counter foie gras from butcher Jack O’Shea’s concession at Selfridges in London. He had been selling the delicacy illicitly, breaking company rules based on animal welfare grounds, and has since been dismissed by the store.

Lawson is clearly at pains to point out that she did not buy the controversial product in this instance (her lawyers have been in contact with the newspaper concerned). But, tellingly, her tweet did not express any views on the issues surrounding foie gras. She is not calling for a boycott; why would she? It is on the menu in many respected restaurants with exemplary sourcing policies, including one of her favourites, The Ivy. The fact is that few people relish being dragged into such a debate for fear of being the target of angry animal rights campaigners.

But just how cruel is it to force feed a duck or goose? The idea of putting a 15-in tube down the throat of a bird, then depositing a large helping of maize directly into the stomach is not exactly kind. It is a highly unnatural way to fatten the liver of the birds. And force-feeding animals certainly makes governments squeamish. It is not permitted in the UK or in 12 other European states. In California, Arnold Schwarzenegger instigated a ban (though it is allowed in most other American states). It is also illegal in Argentina. Hard lobbying from pressure groups has also led to bans in former producing countries such as Israel and Turkey, and the EU is set to review its policy in 2019.

Yet foie gras producers insist that neither ducks nor geese have a gag reflex and do not suffer discomfort with the insertion of the tube. They also maintain that there is a time of the year – ostensibly before the wild population make migratory flights – when the birds’ instinct is to gorge on grain.

As with all livestock farming there are two sectors: the small “mom and pop” farms in France that hand-rear birds seasonally after the maize harvest in the run-up to Christmas, and the all-year-round intensive factory version.

I have visited the former, and found that both the ducks and geese – though vastly overfed and enormous – were kept fully free range and their strong legs were able to support their weight. They seemed content and willing to be fed through the tube when the farmer offered it. Should I ever see foie gras from a small producer like that one, I am tempted to buy it. I enjoy the intense taste and creamy texture.

My husband, on the other hand, toured the largest foie gras factory farm in the US and found thousands of miserable birds in pens, indoors, shying away from the man with the funnel and tube used for force-feeding.

You would think, given the focus on foie gras, that it is the only inhumanely produced food on the menu. This is because it is a luxury, a delicacy eaten only by wealthy gourmands or on very special occasions by others. And for UK food producers, the controversy surrounding it is a welcome distraction from the fact that there are ingredients in everyone’s daily diet that could also be deemed “cruelly” produced.

The life of an intensively farmed dairy cow, provider of children’s milk and all that butter and cream in Nigella Lawson’s rich recipes, is a miserable one: unable to graze on grass, its calves are removed within a day or two of birth and then it is kept in an almost permanent state of lactation by twice daily milking. How about life in an egg battery? Even with the new “enhanced” cages, these chickens will never be able to behave naturally. What of the sow in the indoor system (permitted in the UK) that is forced to have an unnatural number of litters and live in a confined space?

Compassion in World Farming supports the UK ban on foie gras production, but says other farming methods are dangerously close to extreme cruelty. “Foie gras is an example of intensive farming at its worst, yet ducks and geese are just two of the many species that suffer through inhumane methods of production,” says Dil Peeling of CIWF.

Of course, there are many examples of all-natural, high-welfare farming in the UK and our organic standards are excellent. But livestock only exist for human consumption. However, while intensive dairy production is necessarily unnatural and cruel, foie gras production is unnecessarily cruel. But there is nothing unnecessary or frivolous about foie gras to producers – especially in France. The enlarged liver is bigger than the birds’ only other asset, the breast meat. The foie gras economy is so valuable that when a German food fair banned it, there was a diplomatic incident.

Sales of foie gras have fallen recently, due to price increases caused by the high cost of grain. Thanks to its luxury image, it is gaining in popularity in the Middle East (a halal foie gras is being developed) and China. Ultimately foie gras is tied into traditional French gastronomy, which in turn is one of France’s greatest cultural exports. Chefs in the UK, the US and elsewhere who ape the French style of feeding the wealthy see it as part of the vernacular of French cuisine (though some, namely veteran British-based French chef Albert Roux, will not serve it).

Perhaps he would like to try the world’s first cruelty-free foie gras. In Extremadura, northern Spain, Eduardo Sousa produces a type from geese reared seasonally in “absolute freedom, without force feeding and totally organic”. The flavour of this pâté is very similar to French foie gras, but the texture is less buttery, less melting.

This “happy” foie gras, launched in the UK in 2007, is yet to catch on. Meanwhile, the traditional kind remains, for many, a secret and guilty pleasure. However, in the wider scheme of problems in the industry– obesity, famine and food security – overfed ducks shouldn’t be the main course, merely a side dish.